For a long time I refrained from speaking publicly about your application for the position of UNESCO Director General. I have followed your past and present statements, I have read your justifications, I've met your co-workers, I have taken note of your promises. I know that you have the support of powerful groups, such as the World Islamic Conference and the African Union, and that some European countries and Israel itself are not totally opposed to your candidacy. Realpolitik calculations and the unspoken geographical rotation of UNESCO positions are in your favour. Moreover, you have publicly and "solemnly" regretted "the" words you spoke (which ones?), as being the opposite of what you believe and of what you are. You have offered to take initiatives such as translating certain Israeli authors, accessing community registers of Egyptian Jews or disseminating works on the Holocaust. We are aware of Egypt's decisive role in negotiations in the Middle East, freeing Gilad Shalit and fighting Islamic terrorism. In short, you are using strong arguments and have a good chance of being elected.

You write that UNESCO should be a place for educational and academic debate that goes beyond community-based rifts. You add that choosing an Egyptian, an Arab, a Muslim would be a magnificent message of hope. Indeed, why not, but given your past, I believe that the choice of Farouk Hosni would be a terrible sign of being too lenient.

Should your words in the Ruz Al Yusuf newspaper be taken as a message of hope?: "the Jews have stolen our history and our civilisation; they have no civilisation of their own; they have no country, and do not deserve to have one. So they try to create one by force." These words date back to 1997, 4 years after the Oslo agreements and before the last intifada. You were under no particular moral or psychological pressure at the time. Is this the overcoming of community divisions that you are advocating? There is one term to describe a text such as this: anti-Semitic. Do you agree?

You claim credit for having recently invited Daniel Barenboim for a concert in Cairo, as if it was some remarkable exploit. For anyone who is aware of this great musician's commitment to the Palestinian cause, the very fact that it was so difficult to organise this concert, because he is Jewish, goes to show the overwhelming weight of anti-Semitic prejudices in your country. As Minister of Culture for so many years, what have you done to oppose this? And do you not think that your declarations have contributed to reinforcing this climate?

It was while you were occupying your position that the negationist Roger Garaudy came to fame in your country; it was while you were occupying your position that the Protocols of the Sages of Zion, a proven fake, prospered in your country's bookshops. Never did you consider banning it, you who suggested - in a moment of distraction, you say, let us hope it's true, but what a horror! - burning Israeli books. Your understanding of freedom of expression for many years was very unilateral. I know, you have restored synagogues, those last traces of a Jewish community chased out of your country and some of whose members could trace their presence there to well before Islam. But what have you done to respect living Judaism?

A few weeks ago, on Egyptian television, a young woman who was certainly not an Islamic fundamentalist, advised Arabs to rape as many Jewish women as possible, to punish the Jews "for the rape of Arab land". The journalist did not protest. Did you, as Minister of Culture, react?

You consider that the fate of Palestine is so horrible that it justifies such verbal excesses. But have you expressed concern for the dozens of conflicts with far more terrible human consequences and that a cultured man such as you should not accept? Have the Darfur massacres caused you to commit verbal excesses and have you refused to cooperate with your Sudanese colleague?

I know that you are hostile to the Islamic veil and that you have been critical of Islamic fundamentalists. But is not for that reason that you have had to give them guarantees as to the impeccable nature of your abhorrence of Israel and the Jews?

I know too that you came to Paris for an event at UNESCO. But your speech about the Holocaust, in which the word Jew was practically absent, sounded quite ambiguous. You were campaigning for election; was your memory divided?

"Civilisations in dialogue" is a grand project, if it includes the universal nature of Human Rights. It is a propaganda slogan if it promotes the idea that these rights must vary according to the country, religion and culture. It is a shameful travesty if under cover of anti-Zionism, it encourages anti-Semitism. I would like to remind you, Mr Minister of Culture, that anti-Semitism means hatred of the Jews and not being against people who speak Semitic languages.

Mr Hosni, I would have liked to be able to trust you and believe in your promises. But your career has already been a long one and it gives you no legitimacy - and that is a euphemism - for the prestigious position that you are seeking. That you do not understand this is either impudence or blindness. And I have difficulty in believing your contrition.

There is no lack in Islamic lands or elsewhere of individuals whose life stands as a testimony to their commitment on behalf of the brotherhood of man. They are the ones who deserve this position at UNESCO. Please rise to the occasion by standing down and by undertaking in your present position a genuine effort to bring people together. Then and only then will you show that the values that you are defending today - but only today - really matter to you.

Richard Prasquier, President of CRIF